


fire in the sky

by sungods



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, POV Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani, POV Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, basically the boys are yearning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-08
Updated: 2020-10-08
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:13:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26890465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sungods/pseuds/sungods
Summary: He does not think about the way Yusuf’s wet hair curls at the nape of his neck, or how the flickering candlelight gives Yusuf a glow, like he has taken the sun itself and drawn it behind his ribs.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 17
Kudos: 290





	fire in the sky

**Author's Note:**

> thank you, in advance, for reading- i'm really bad at replying back to comments because of ~anxiety~ but if you choose to leave a comment, know that i read it and appreciated it.  
> i've been asking people to send me little prompts to inspire my writing and this two-parter comes from an [ask](https://thetransguard.tumblr.com/post/629704414393974784/) i received from [kayla](https://nilefreemans.tumblr.com/) and another [ask](https://thetransguard.tumblr.com/post/630475860748681216/) from anonymous from a prompt list

His hands feel like they are burning against his skin.

He forces them to be steady and unwavering, doing his best to keep the cool, damp cloth between his fingers and the smooth skin of Yusuf’s back. Just wipe the blood away. Easy. Simple. He does not think about the way Yusuf’s wet hair curls at the nape of his neck, or how the flickering candlelight gives Yusuf a glow, like he has taken the sun itself and drawn it behind his ribs.

“You’ve gone noticeably quiet back there. I thought you said it was all healed up?” Yusuf’s voice is a raw whisper, probably more due to his throat stitching itself back together than anything else. They’d been ambushed, and Yusuf killed, brutally, before Nico could do anything to stop it. They’d had a good few years, and Nico had forgotten the sound of Yusuf dying. It would haunt him, tonight. He would do better. As it were, he had killed every man in that narrow alleyway and carried Yusuf’s bleeding corpse all the way back here, to their little hired room, to heal. Once he was done, they would need to leave town in a hurry, but Yusuf had been covered in blood and his arms were reforming. Nico had offered to help the other man clean up. Clearly, he was not thinking straight.

“Your ribs are not showing, so I think you are doing alright.” That pulls a laugh out of Yusuf. God, Nico would die for that laugh. His friend laughs loud and easily, at bad jokes and small animals and sometimes for no real reason at all. Joy pours out of him like sunlight.

_Stop. Stop. Enough._

The thing is, Nico knows what the feeling inside him is, steadily growing with every passing day. A beat as sure and as certain as his heart. He’s not afraid, hasn’t been for some time. But he’s not quite there yet. Not enough to speak what he feels, anyway. Someday, who knows? He has lived long enough to know that the future is not a thing to be relied on.

Not tonight, though.

\--

Aside from dying horribly and having to run for his and Nico’s life, Yusuf had been having a fairly good day.

The death had been painful and bloody but it was almost worth it, opening his eyes to see Nico’s hovering inches above him, that blue (or green, and Yusuf had never been able to decide what colour exactly his friend’s eyes were in all their years of travelling together) filled with that wild, all-encompassing concern. He’d been splattered with the blood of other men but his hands had been gentle, almost shaky as he helped Yusuf to his feet and they’d set off. Once, Yusuf would have found it humiliating to have to be half carried like this, especially by the man who had become his closest companion, but he was just so _tired_. Coming back took a lot out of you. No one else would know this as intimately as Nicolo, and he guessed that’s why he’d offered to clean the worst of the blood off him.

He didn’t want to overthink, he _didn’t_ , but there in that candlelit room, it had taken everything in him to not lean into his friend’s touch. He’d known firsthand what violence those hands could dispense, but under Nicolo’s quiet ministrations he could have happily stayed there forever. For a moment, he let his mind wander- what if the other man felt the way he did? Felt that burning urge to hold, to cherish, to lock eyes and not let go. _I would walk into the end of the world with a smile, with you_. 

As it were, he’d finished healing by the time he was clean and didn’t need Nicolo’s help to scramble around their little living space, shoving essentials into bags, retrieving all the weapons they’d hidden around the space. They’d taken a few jobs in this town, mostly at the expense of the local lord who’d decided that profiting off the pain of his subordinates was a morally sound path to wealth. They hadn’t expected to be able to stay for long but the ferocity with which they were being pursued dictated a speedy exit. He wanted to stay longer, he did. And maybe they’d come back to finish what they’d started, but for now? They hurried down darkened streets, jumping at sudden movements, shying away from the light and loud noises.

“We should go east, after this,” Nico says, absurdly conversational, as they try to maintain an unsuspicious walking pace. “I miss proper baths and men who will not try to ambush us in the streets.”

“What about your people Nico, won’t you miss them?” Yusuf matches Nico’s deliberate calm with teasing. A call back to the days when Nico was nothing more than a nameless face in a sea of so many like his, as Yusuf was to him. They’d meant so little, nothing at all really, to each other then. How time had changed them both.

Nicolo turns the full force of those luminous eyes on him and Yusuf is left transfixed. “You _are_ my people.” Yusuf’s mouth falls open, not of his own volition, and his companion’s eyes flick to somewhere beyond him. “In here.” 

A hand on his wrist in the dark and he is pulled into a narrow alleyway, Nico tucking him against the wall as a clatter of boots and metal pass by. Yusuf loosens the sword at his belt, and they stay frozen like that, stiff with barely restrained motion. It seems to take much too long for the men hunting them to leave. His heart is pounding in his chest.

“I think they’re gone now,” murmurs Nico, loosening his grip on his own sword, and their eyes meet, and _fuck_ if it isn’t one of the most beautiful things Yusuf has seen in his long, long life. Nicolo’s pupils are dilated in the dark and as he watches, they seem to get a little bigger, the band of sea shrinking a little more. He can feel the other man’s breath on his face.

Well. What now, Yusuf?

**Author's Note:**

> is this the story of the lead up to their first kiss? no i have a separate idea for how that happens so basically this fic can be boiled down to like 1000 words of just yearning whoops lol  
> the fic name comes from fire in the sky by palace, i was listening to it while editing it and well! it fits to me


End file.
